Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta – The body of a key suspect in the killing of two Americans and an Indonesian in the eastern province of Papua has been identified by his family as an informant for the Indonesian military's special forces, according to a human rights group helping in the police investigation.
John Rumbiak, an official with the Papua-based Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy, said the slain suspect, whose body was recovered by police one day after the August 31 ambush, was a 24-year-old Papuan named Danianus Waker. His family approached Rumbiak's group on Saturday and said Waker, a member of the Dani tribe from the Sugapa area about 60 miles north of the ambush site, had been employed by the special forces for at least a year while working illegally as a gold panner.
This information, combined with the results of an autopsy on the body, have raised doubts about whether separatist rebels were involved in the attack as the Indonesian military alleges.
To support their claim, military commanders said they shot the suspect dead during a firefight with suspected rebels along a road leading to the Freeport-McMoRan gold and copper mine, where the three victims worked.
But the regional police chief, I. Made Pastika, who is exploring the possible role of soldiers in the killings, said in an interview Saturday that an autopsy has determined that the suspect suffered from chronic, massive enlargement of the testicles. The condition could have made it difficult for him to engage in guerrilla activities, including traversing the rugged mountain terrain surrounding the mine.
An examination of the body also concluded that the man was killed about 24 hours before the soldiers said they shot him, a discrepancy that Pastika said concerns him.
He added, however, that it was premature to conclude whether soldiers, separatists or disgruntled tribesmen were behind the attack, in which gunmen stopped a convoy of vehicles on a foggy road near the mine. The vehicles were raked with gunfire.
"We are still working on it," he said, adding, "For the time being, we have to believe [the army] until we come up with other facts." Pastika has said he is examining the possibility that soldiers might have orchestrated the attack in an effort to extort money and other concessions from the Freeport facility, the world's largest gold and copper mine, and other multinational corporations in Papua. If proved, the involvement of soldiers in the ambush could hamstring efforts by the Bush administration to restore military ties with Indonesia, suspended in 1999 to protest the army's role in organizing widespread militia violence in East Timor.
The military and Freeport officials have blamed the attack on the Free Papua Movement, whose long-running independence campaign has been marked by sporadic, low-level violence, but never before involved killing Westerners. The recent attack killed American teachers Edwin L. Burgon of Sunriver, Ore., and Ricky L. Spier of Colorado as well as their Indonesian colleague, Bambung Riwanto.
A military source in Papua cautioned that any information released by investigators in the ongoing police probe would be premature. He said he was unaware of a medical finding that the unidentified man had been shot earlier than the military had claimed.
Rumbiak, however, said the newest information clearly points to military involvement in the attack on the Freeport convoy. "It's obvious, very obvious. It's very easy to conclude who did the attack," he said.
The police chief said the autopsy was completed by a police doctor and a physician affiliated with Freeport. The victim's testicles had swollen to a diameter of about six inches; the autopsy concluded he had suffered the condition for at least a year.
Examination of the body also raised questions about the military's account of when the man was killed. Indonesian armed forces said he was slain in an exchange of fire with soldiers September 1 as they guarded police who were investigating the crime scene. But Rumbiak, the human rights advocate, said the victim's wounds were not fresh when his body was recovered, indicating that he had been killed 24 hours earlier.
Pastika's determination to investigate possible army involvement and other theories has put him at odds with Indonesia's powerful military. The army has long played a highly influential role in Papua, providing security for Freeport operations in return for lucrative compensation. The senior military commander in Papua, Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, recently vowed to crush the separatist campaign, raising concerns among human rights and community groups that advocate a peaceful settlement of the dispute.
This afternoon, unidentified gunmen attacked an Indonesian military vehicle close to the spot of the August 31 ambush, injuring one soldier, sources in Papua said.
In a report issued Friday examining the Papua conflict, the International Crisis Group warned that violence could escalate if the military pursues a hard-line approach.